On silent wings; adventures in motorless flight.
Don Dwiggins
151 pages

Any book by Don Dwiggins is an adventure book, but perhaps this is in the adventure section by false pretenses.

This book is a history of gliding. As usual, it features information gleaned over the years by personal contact the author had with leading lights in gliding.

There are a number of excellent photos. If you go to the Moorabin museum, you will recognise the basic glider that came out of the German Wasserkuppe era.

There are a number of war stories, featuring, of course, the Nazi rescue of Mussolini.

LCCN:  76122569
Author: Dwiggins, Don.
Main Title: On silent wings; adventures in motorless flight.
Published: New York, Grosset & Dunlap [1970]
Description: 151 p. illus., charts, maps, ports. 25 cm.
Subjects: Gliding and soaring.
Series: Adventures in flight

The air devils; the story of balloonists, barnstormers, and stunt pilots.
Don Dwiggins
226 pages

Forget Red Bull, this is the real deal.

They all do crazy things, then die young. Except a few who die a little bit later.

Paul Mantz, Beachey, Curtiss, Willard.

My favorite is Jimmie Angel and the Gold Mine in the sky.

You can look up the basic story on Wikipedia, but of course, Dwiggins tells it with his own twist.

"I met Jimmie in 1956, at Whiteman Airpark ... an older man now, but with a strange, haunted look in his eyes.

""Come with me and write the story. ... I'm really gonna find it this time.

""Meet me in Panama," he said. "I'm picking up a short wave radio there, to use on the mountaintop."

"By the time I reached Panama, Jimmie Angel was dead."


LCCN:  66018443
Author: Dwiggins, Don.
Main Title: The air devils; the story of balloonists,
barnstormers, and stunt pilots.
Edition Information: [1st ed.]
Published: Philadelphia, Lippincott [1966]
Description: 226 p. illus., ports. 24 cm.
Subjects: Stunt performers.
Balloon ascensions--History.
Series: Airmen & aircraft

Riders of the winds; the story of ballooning
Don Dwiggins

LCCN:  73000371
Author: Dwiggins, Don.
Main Title: Riders of the winds; the story of ballooning.
Published: New York, Hawthorn Books [c1973]
Description: x, 180 p. illus. 22 cm.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 175.
Subjects: Ballooning--History.

Airman's odyssey
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ;

This is an omnibus of three of his books; Wind, sand, and stars; Night flight; Flight to Arras.

Part adventure stories, part gallic flights of fancy, opinion and philosophies, this a grand set of old yarns.

They generally go like: "forced down in the Saharan desert by a minor hitch with my plane, I wondered when the moors would kill me. Awake and staring at the stars I become one with the universe. The feeling is indescribable, but I bump over an ancient rock. Guillemant rescues me at dawn."

Great yarns in thick Gauloise smoke.

 The author died in the second world war, with his German victor only recently identified.

LCCN:  84010497
Author: Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900-1944.
Uniform Title: Selections. English. 1984
Main Title: Airman's odyssey / by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ;
with an introduction by Richard Bach.
Edition Information: 1st Harvest/HBJ ed.
Published: San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984, c1942.
Description: xii, 437 p. ; 21 cm.
ISBN: 0156037335 (pbk.)
Contents: Wind, sand, and stars -- Night flight -- Flight to Arras.
Notes: Translation of 3 stories from French.
Reprint. Originally published: New York : Reynal & Hitchcock, [1943]
Subjects: Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900-1944--Translations into English.
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900-1944.
Authors, French--20th century--Biography.
Air pilots--France--Biography.
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, French.
 

Publishers Notes: 

Three classic adventure stories, reminders of both the romance and the reality of the pioneer era of aviation: Night Flight Wind, Sand and Stars and Flight to Arras. Introduction by Richard Bach. Translated by Lewis Galantiere and Stuart Gilbert.



ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUP'RY, the "Winged Poet," was born in Lyon, France, in 1900. He took his first flight at the age of eleven, and became a pilot at twenty-six. He was a pioneer of commercial aviation and flew in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. His writings include The Little Prince, Wind,
Sand and Stars, Night Flight, Southern Mail, and Airman's Odyssey. In 1944, while serving with a French air squadron, he disappeared during a flight over the Mediterranean.

The RAAF in Russia
Geoffrey Raebel
Australian Military History Publications

Our own Geoff Raebel recounts a chapter in his father's life.  It's an unusual story.